Horsemeat: Urgent tests on meat sold in Brum shops

Watchdogs to check food sold in city after Findus withdraws its lasagnes from sale.

Consumer watchdogs are carrying out urgent tests on meat sold in restaurants and shops across Birmingham – looking for horsemeat.

Findus has begun withdrawing its lasagnes after it found so-called beef products contained up to 100 per cent horse meat.

The Findus beef lasagne

More than 200 million products have been withdrawn from sale in the last month since the Food Safety Authority found burgers supplied to supermarkets contained horse meat.

Tesco, Aldi, Burger King, Asda and Co-op have all been affected by the saga.

The Ministry of Justice also suspended a prison meat supplier after it was discovered that Halal pies and pasties may have contained traces of pork DNA.

Now environmental health bosses at Birmingham city council are stepping up the number of tests they carry out on meat and pastry products made and sold in Birmingham.

Nick Lowe, the council’s foods operations manager, said the team was also investigating whether the wrong meat was ending up in products as a result of deliberate fraud or other criminal activity, rather than mistaken contamination.

“We have embarked on an extensive sampling exercise of burgers and similar products to test for the presence of undeclared meat species,” he said. “The sampling exercise involves both halal and non-halal marketed products, including meat, pastry and processed goods.’’

He said officers had so far taken 50 samples from an array of businesses across the city, including restaurants, takeaways, wholesalers and food manufacturers. So far nothing untoward has been found. The team has also ordered that all products implicated in the saga are removed from Birmingham’s shop shelves.

Meanwhile, Midland MP Tom Watson (Lab, West Bromwich East) has claimed Findus knew for days that its lasagne was made with horse meat before it informed the public.

Mr Watson said he had obtained a letter sent by the company to retailers revealing that it was told about the problem in writing on February 2. The public was only informed about the contamination on Wednesday.